Friday, 10 July 2015

The experiences in Somalia serve as an excellent case in point
that limited (albeit sometimes inadequate) commitment to war inexplicably
escalates violence thereby increasing the cost of war in tandem. The increasing
cost of war in turn exerts greater strain on the limited economic resources of
a nation thus consequently eroding the popular support for such a war besides
crippling the political capital of the ruling regime. Democracies are especially vulnerable to small asymmetric wars as
the high expectation of a quick and sure victory over a weak enemy is
contradicted in actual reality by economic expediency and inelastic ethical
tolerance for the prolongation of an escalating conflict (that continuously
inflicts disproportionate casualties) hence draining popular support for the
war and consequently compelling the government to withdraw prematurely from the
conflict. In other words, small asymmetric wars are lost by Democracies at
Home and not in the Battlefield. In Kenya, the war against al-Shabaab has proved the inherent
difficulty in achieving maintainable domestic consensus for a protracted
intertwined counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism campaign in a foreign
nation (Somalia).

Peacekeeping attempts in Somalia have repeatedly
failed due to a combination of factors, chief among them being; manpower
shortages, unsatisfactory arms control measures (which have been
unable to stem al-Shabaab's arm imports),inadequatecommitment
to stabilize combat zones, absence of widespread support from the Somali
population, and, policy failures which have allowed the Sunni jihadists to
prolong and escalate their insurgent campaign.

The bitterest lesson learnt from the present
multinational counter-insurgency campaign against al-Shabaab in Somalia is that
an internally fragile organization can conduct a disorganized terror campaign
that significantly raises the cost of war as the insurgent organization
transforms into a potent adversary - thus the absolute necessity of preventing
the escalation of the war during its nascent phases (if possible).

An Earlier Failed Jihadist Campaign

During the late 19th Century,
the Great Powers of Europe annexed and partitioned the lands inhabited by the
Somalis into protectorates with Italian Somaliland separating the British
protectorates of Jubbaland and Somaliland. In 1899, Muhamed Abdullah Hassan
(alias Sayyid) waged a jihadist war against the British rulers - who were
non-Muslims - with the resolve of regaining autonomy and control of all the
Somali protectorates. Sayyid was a dervish and his jihadist fighters considered
themselves dervishes (unlike the present al-Shabaab which is monolithically
Salafist-takfiri in ideological orientation).

An estimated 10, 000 dervish insurgents faced off
against a combined force of 2,500 British soldiers (during the start of the
insurgency) who controlled all the lucrative ports of Somaliland, and also
imposed heavy taxes and punitive levies on the local population. Nonetheless,
despite their numerical inferiority, the British were able to dominate the
two-decade long war through a combination of superior battlefield tactics,
advanced military technologies and the external restriction imposed on the
movement of the dervishes across the region (which was actually imposed by
back-up operations and occasional patrols conducted by the Italian and
Ethiopian troops within their respective protectorates). Nevertheless, the
strategies and tactics adopted and used by the insurgents ensured the survival
of their insurgency till their armies were completely destroyed in 1920.

Somaliland

The Flag of the Self-declared Republic of Somaliland.

Having learnt from its past; Modern Somaliland
is presently the most stable region of Somalia, and since the collapse of the
Central Somali Government (based in Mogadishu) in 1991, the region has gained
considerable political autonomy with a comparatively stable government and a
relatively prospering economy. Despite a series of electoral crises stalemating
its infant constitutional democracy, and its occasional border disputes and strained
relationships with the adjacent regions of Puntland and Federally-administered
Somalia; Somaliland still has the best human rights record in Somalia and has
also set-up several functional democratic institutions and the government still
provides various essential basic services including administration and
infrastructure - even though its autonomy has never gained international
recognition.

However, other non-Somaliland Somalis consider
the self-declared State as a treacherous entity created by one, Mohamed Egaal,
and that its creation has led to the immense suffering of Somalis in Kenya,
Somalia and Ethiopia.

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Mohamed Egaal was a Somaliland ethno-nationalist
who served as the President of Somalia when Somalia signed the renunciation of
NFD (Northern Frontier District of Kenya) with Kenyatta’s regime thereby ending
state support for the Shifta insurgency in Kenya. Egaal was disinterested in
the Greater Somalia aspirations, and he serves as an excellent example of a
clannish leader who sacrificed nationalistic goals for narrow clan-based
aspirations. The creation of Somaliland led to the marginalization of NEP
(North Eastern province, a partial segment of the former NFD) by the successive
Somali and Kenyan governments.

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Southern Somalia

Southern Somalia currently epitomizes every
aspect of a failed state with a hopelessly unstable government unable to manage
incessant civil disturbances and transnational terrorist
activities. Repeated violence in the region has drawn in several
peacekeeping missions including the UN and AU to suppress the unrest, with
foreign mediators - from the Arab League, USA, EU, and from several NGOs -
invited to intervene in the conflict to no decisive avail.

At the core of the conflicts is a complex set of
ethnic rivalries, class dynamics, clan politics, pervasive Islamism and
political enmities stemming from disparate resource possession among the
competing diverse socio-political groups.

Rampant Insecurity has led to civilians taking up arms for self-defense.

For a decade (1995-2005), Somalia experienced
the devolution of the civil war from inter-clan conflicts to intra-clan
conflicts with increasing localization of (albeit shorter but still lethal)
armed conflicts. The author hypothesizes that this state of affairs was
caused by the consolidation of influence and loyalties by influential and
wealthy clan personalities within their clans, as opposed to powerful clans
endeavoring to consolidate their dominance over other clans.

Emergence of Violent Jihadists

Violent Jihadist elements.

From 2006 to 2009, the then internationally
recognized Transitional Federal Government (TFG), alongside her AMISOM and
Ethiopian allies, found themselves embroiled in an intense and remarkably
violent armed conflict with militant jihadists – initially fighting as a
confederacy of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) prior to its dissolution, and the
emergence of the intractable and exceedingly lethal Salafist-takfiri militant
organization, Al-Shabaab, under the leadership of Ahmed Abdi Godane. In 2009,
the Ethiopian forces withdrew from Somalia thus creating a strategic security
vacuum which was promptly exploited by Al-Shabaab as it began to systematically
rout TFG and AMISOM troops from swathes of Somali territories.

Al-Shabaab

Al-Shabaab consolidated its finances - sourced
mainly from taxations and voluntary donations - prior to incorporating military
advisers (both foreign and local) within its ranks; and training for both
conventional and asymmetrical warfare as its logistics department secured large
consignments of weapons from al-Qaeda and foreign state supporters such as
Eritrea.

From its cradle in Southern Somalia, al-Shabaab
has been able to rapidly expand the scope and scale of its terror activities
across the region through the creation of affiliates (such as Al-Hijra in Kenya
and al-Muhajiroun [for the entire East African region]), and dedicated
specialized units for external operations (such as Amniyaat [its
intelligence arm] and Al-Quds [tasked with targeting Western
interests in East Africa, and Kenya in particular]) while independently
building alliances with regional jihadist organizations so as to extend and expand
its international terrorist networks to Central Africa, Nigeria, Europe,
Americas and Oceania (in particular, Australia).

War Flag of Al-Shabaab

Starting from 2009, Al-Shabaab initiated a
vigorous recruitment campaign using both traditional and modern means
(including the internet and social media) to rally clan militiamen and foreign
jihadists under their banner; as they adopted modern asymmetric battlefield
tactics in order to sustain their insurgency (especially after they suffered a
continuous string of setbacks in 2011 till 2014).

Presently, the intertwinement of the interests
and activities of the Somali warlords, domestic insurgents, obstructive
external meddlers and transnational terrorists have greatly hampered the
planning and execution of effective counter-insurgency campaigns besides
obstructing conclusive resolution of the Somali conflict.

Counter-Terrorism and Counter-Insurgency – Learning from the Past

Somalia has been in a protracted state of
conflict for over two decades and this fact exponentially obstructs foreign
governments and compassionate external actors from stabilizing the nation
besides eliminating international terrorism from the
region. Regrettably, the insurgents have currently amalgamated their
assets as well as gained considerable national political clout.

The general terrain of Somalia favours guerrilla
warfare - a physical element that has enabled al-Shabaab to survive
obliteration during its weakest moments. Through use of a combination of
hit-and-run tactics alongside provision of false intelligence to the
counter-terrorism forces, al-Shabaab has been able to draw counter-insurgents
into ideal terrains for ambushes - where they have been able to inflict massive
casualties on both the multinational and SNA (Somali National Army) forces.
These guerilla tactics closely echo the hit-and-run operations and the surprise
lightning raids that were often employed by the Somaliland dervishes to drain
the British military of its resources besides circumventing open terrain
combat.

The Terrain of Somalia favours Guerilla Warfare

Furthermore, during the campaign against the
Somaliland dervishes, the Somalis within the British units were undependable,
easily intimidated (by the dervishes); and worst, a significant number of them
were double agents who fed the dervishes with intelligence about impeding operations.
This fact significantly eroded the combat effectiveness of the British
operations. The aforementioned facts closely mirror the modern SNA which
is predominantly made up of undependable, easily intimidated (by al-Shabaab)
troops; and worst, its embedded with a significant population of double agents
who feed al-Shabaab with intelligence concerning impeding counter-terrorism
operations, hence significantly eroding the combat effectiveness of
counter-insurgency operations. Worse still, some SNA soldiers often pledge
loyalties to their respective clans more than to the nation thus diminishing
unit cohesion as well as compromising combat effectiveness. Compared to AMISOM,
the SNA is more disorganized with its operations suffering glaring
dis-coordination while its disordered combat units engage in corruption and
venalities.

Likewise, the British were unable to enforce arm
embargoes thereby failing to stem the flow of weapons to the dervishes; while
presently, AMISOM, SNG (Somali National Government) and Allied Forces have been
unable to enforce arm embargoes thereby failing to stem the flow of weapons to
al-Shabaab. This failure to clip the supply lines and communications
networks of al-Shabaab has helped the jihadists to preserve their forces as well
as endure a decade-long guerrilla war phase.

AMISOM Setbacks

AMISOM itself also suffers several setbacks
including inadequate weaponry, manpower shortages, political instability in
troop-contributing nations, and, ineffective military tactics unsuitable for combating
insurgents versed in the art of guerilla warfare. Its combat ineffectiveness
can also be attributed to resource limitations, poor organisation, and
inadequate coordination during kinetic operations.

Self-inflicted Harms

Lack of effective enforcement of arms sanctions
have ensured that the terrorists will never be disarmed in the near future; and
the fact that the international community has intentionally created legal
loopholes (by allowing East African nations to directly import weapons into Somalia)
which allows the jihadist insurgents to import munitions from foreign
sympathizers, has guaranteed that its arms embargo will always be infringed.
The main foreign suppliers of weapons to al-Shabaab still remain Saudi Arabia,
Iran, Qatar, Yemen, Eritrea and Egypt.

The dervishes were drawn from disparate clans,
and internal divisions soon manifested itself, thus prompting Sayyid to
forcibly infuse discipline and organisation besides forming a centralized military
system accountable to a hierarchical leadership. This enabled Sayyid to rebuild
internal cohesion as well as boost the morale of his fighters, and thus prolong
and escalate the conflict.

Recently, al-Shabaab executed an internal purge
aimed at stifling dissent, infusing discipline; and, reordering and
re-organizing the terror organization into a cohesive centralized military unit
assured of a functional hierarchical (command) structure and leadership, thus
consequently enabling the Sunni terrorist organization to restore the morale of
its fighters as well as prolong (and also escalate and expand) its terror
campaign in the region.

Ghosts from the Past

Sayyid’s attempt to reorder the Somali political
order as well as his religious fanaticism, misrule, despotism, bloody carnages
against rivals tribes, and, indiscriminate plundering of rival clans helped
foment a backlash against him with Sheikh Mahamed Salah (of the Salahiya order)
openly challenging him during the Tree-of-Bad Counsel crisis.
This created an internal crisis within the dervishes’ ranks, with fighters
loyal to Sayyid defeating the rebellious troops, and the dervishes emerging
from the conflict as a unified and fortified organization able to rearm with
modern weapons and consequently overwhelm its adversaries and dominating the
Somali hinterland.

This echoes the aftermath of al-Shabaab’s
internal purge when the Salafist-Takfiri organization emerged from the crisis
as a unified and fortified organization able to re-arm with advanced weaponry,
and adopt new combat tactics and strategies, which would later on enable it to
launch a series of offensives in mid-2015 that allowed it to overwhelm segments
of both AMISOM and SNA, and thereby dominate the Somali hinterland – from where
they have been able to expand the scope and depth of their terrorist campaigns
in both Kenya and Somalia.

Lessons for Democracies – Cost of War Directly Tied to Popular
Support

The experiences in Somalia serve as an excellent
case in point that limited (albeit sometimes inadequate) commitment to war
inexplicably escalates violence thus increasing the cost of war in tandem. The
increasing cost of war in turn exerts greater strain on the limited economic
resources of the nation thus consequently eroding the popular support for such
a war besides crippling the political capital of the ruling regime.

Democracies are especially vulnerable to small
asymmetric wars as the high (and popular) expectation of a quick victory over a
weak enemy is contradicted by the actual reality where economic expediency and
ethical tolerance for the prolongation of an escalating conflict (that
continuously inflicts disproportionate casualties) drains popular support for
the war thus compelling the government to withdraw prematurely from the conflict.
In other words, small asymmetric wars are lost at Home and not in the
battlefield.

In Kenya, the war against al-Shabaab has proved
the inherent difficulty of achieving maintainable domestic consensus for a
protracted intertwined counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism campaigns in a
foreign nation (Somalia).

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